Memory curriculum

When the list disappears you get one of three questions: which item came right after a named one, which item sat in a given position, or which option was never shown. You cannot know in advance which one is coming, so learn the order as well as the items. Knowing the items without their order answers only the third kind.

A five-item list stays on screen for about five seconds and an eleven-item list for about eleven, with three seconds as the minimum. That is too fast to linger on any one item, so spend the first look grouping the list and the rest rehearsing it. Tapping "I'm ready" ends the study early; save it for when you can already say the whole list in order.

Every item in a list is different, so each question has exactly one right answer. It also means that in an order question every wrong option is an item you really saw, sitting in another slot. Recognizing the options is therefore not enough for two of the three questions; you need to know where each item sat.

Estimates of how many units a person can hold at once run from about four to about seven, depending on what is counted as a unit. Either way, the limit applies to chunks. Nine letters held as nine separate names crowd it, while the same nine letters held as three sayable chunks use only three of its places.

Digits heard in small groups separated by pauses are easier to recall than the same digits run together, and you can impose that grouping yourself as you read. Take 5 8 2 7 3 9 0 4 as 582, 739, 04: three groups to hold instead of eight digits. Groups of three are the usual choice, with a group of two for whatever is left over.

Say the groups in your head the way you read out a phone number: the voice rises at the end of each group and falls on the last one. In one study a natural melody of this kind helped people recall spoken digits, beyond what pauses alone did. Use the same melody on every list, so marking the groups takes no thought.

A group that matches something you already know costs almost nothing to hold, because knowledge you already have can turn several digits into one chunk: 1 4 9 2 is a famous year, 6 7 8 9 is a run, and 2 4 6 8 counts by twos. Look for these first, then group whatever is left around them.

Letters held one at a time fill your capacity fast. Add vowels in your head so a run turns into something you can say: H R B becomes "harbor" and T M S becomes "times." You still answer with the letters, but you rehearse one sayable chunk instead of three separate letter names.

Scan the run for letter groups you already know as units: U S A, D N A, G P S, N F L. A familiar abbreviation is a single chunk, so a seven-letter run that contains two of them leaves only one letter to hold on its own. Check the order as you go, because D N A and N D A are different chunks.

The names of B, C, D, E, G, P, T, V and Z all end in the same "ee" sound. Lists of similar-sounding items are recalled worse than lists of distinct ones, and much of the damage is to their order. When several of these letters appear together, hold them by their place in a chunk you built rather than by their sound.

A run of nine or ten letters is too long to turn into one word. Split it into threes first and make each three sayable on its own. C L P D R W S N K becomes "clip," "draw" and "sink": three chunks in order. If a group will not become a word, say it as a rhythm, like a short code.

Picture each word acting on the next one: a kettle pouring into a saddle, the saddle sliding onto a walrus. Forming an image of two words interacting is a well-tested way to remember pairs, and a chain of such images also stores the order, because each one points forward to the next word.

In one study people took a little over four seconds, on average, to form a single interacting image for a pair of words. The list gives you about one second per word, so you cannot picture every link in full. Picture the links you can, rehearse the rest by sound, and come back to the weakest pair on your final pass.

A story holds order because its events happen one after another: the kettle spilled on the saddle, the saddle slid onto the walrus, the walrus swallowed a trumpet. Use each word once, in list order. When a question asks what came after a word, find that word in the story and read on to the next one.

Saying the words to yourself puts them in a speech-based store that you can refresh by repeating them. That store holds fewer long words than short ones, because recall is poorer for words that take longer to say. You cannot change the words, but you can say them briskly, without stretching them out while you rehearse.

Items held in your inner voice fade within seconds unless you repeat them. Keep a quiet loop running from the moment the list appears until the question shows, including the moment after the list disappears. If the loop breaks, restart it from the first item rather than from wherever you lost it.

Say the first item, then the first two, then the first three, and so on. Each pass starts again at the beginning, so the order is practiced every time and the early items are the best rehearsed. On a long list, rehearse by groups instead: the first group, then the first two groups, then all three.

Use the last moments of the study time for one run through the whole list, first to last, in the groups you made. That pass catches an item you skipped and refreshes the end of the list, which cumulative rehearsal practices least. It is also the route you will search when the question asks for a position or a neighbor.

If one item refuses to stick, leave it and keep the rest moving. A gap costs you only the questions that land on that item, while a stalled rehearsal can lose the whole order. Mark the gap ("something between drum and sink") so you still know how many items there were.

Say the position with each item: "one kettle, two saddle, three walrus." A question about the fourth item then becomes a lookup instead of a recount. Numbering takes time, so on a long list number only the first item of each group and count within the group.

With groups of three, the first group holds positions one to three, the second four to six, and the third seven to nine. So the eighth item is the middle of the third group, and the fifth is the middle of the second. Turn the ordinal into a group and a place first, then search only that group.

For a late position, count from the end instead: in a nine-item list the eighth item is second from the end, and in an eleven-item list the tenth is second from the end. Counting back is shorter and starts from the end of your final pass. It only works if you know the length, so count the items while you study.

In ordered recall people remember the first items best, keep some advantage for the last item, and do worst on the items in between, which get neither advantage. That tells you where to spend extra effort: give the middle group an extra rehearsal and a stronger link, because that is where your answer is least reliable.

Run through the list two at a time: kettle-saddle, saddle-walrus, walrus-trumpet. Every item then sits in two pairs, once second and once first, and a question about what followed the saddle is answered by the pair that starts with it. With letters and digits, rehearse your chunks in order instead, since each chunk already carries its neighbors.

If the next item does not come straight to mind, replay from the start of the group that holds the named item and say the items until you reach it; the next one you say is the answer. Starting at a group boundary is faster than starting at the top, and saying the items in order follows the same route you rehearsed.

Order errors in recall are mostly swaps between items that sat close together. For a "what came after" question, the items most likely to tempt you are the one two places after the named item and the one just before it. When two options both feel right, replay the stretch and pick the one that comes directly after.

The answer to a "what came after" question sits directly after the named item, so no item from earlier in the list can be it, and the first item never can. Cross off every option you are sure came before the named item, then choose among what is left by replaying from the named item forward.

Take the options one at a time and try to place each in your list: "kettle, first; walrus, third." Three of the four will find a place, and the one that will not is the answer. You never need to recall the missing item itself. Placing an item is a firmer test than a feeling that it looks familiar.

The lists reuse the same small sets of digits, letters and words, so an option may come from a list you studied a minute ago. Items that mattered on an earlier trial are known to intrude on later ones. Ask where the option sat in this list; if you can only remember it from before, it is probably the one that was not shown.

This is the one question that does not need the order. If you lost track of the sequence but still know which items appeared, you can answer it from membership alone. So when the list scrambles in your head, do not give up on it: hold on to the set until you see which kind of question arrives.

When you miss, look at what you chose. An item from a nearby slot means the order slipped, so link the pairs more tightly. An item from an earlier list means old items intruded, so let each list go before the next one. A blank means the item was never stored, so group it and rehearse it before the clock runs out.

When a new list appears, drop the previous one: stop rehearsing it and do not compare the two. Items from the last list that are still circulating can intrude when the next question asks what was shown. Start the new list's loop with its first item, as if nothing came before it.

Easier questions use short lists of digits. As your rating rises the lists lengthen, move to letters and then to words, and reach eleven items. A routine that copes with five digits must still cope with eleven words, so practice grouping and numbering on short lists before you need them on long ones.

Settle on one routine and run it every time: group the list, give each group a sayable form, number the groups, rehearse from the start, and finish with one full pass. A fixed routine saves your attention for the items instead of for deciding what to do next, which matters when the clock gives you about a second per item.